RTV Melilla

RTV Melilla is the public broadcaster of the autonomous city of Melilla. It began broadcasting in 1994 as Información Municipal Melilla, S.A. (INMUSA). A statutory reform agreed on 10 February 2020 renamed the company Radio Televisión Melilla, S.A.U., a public undertaking whose capital belongs entirely and directly to the City of Melilla. Sebastián Alarcón has chaired it since July 2023.

Media assets

Television: Televisión Melilla.

Radio: Onda Melilla.

Digital: tvmelilla.es, which carries a live stream and an archive of programmes, and Play Melilla, the on-demand platform.

Ownership and governance

The company’s governance is set out in statutes whose amendment and consolidation the Junta General agreed on 10 February 2020. The proposal was published on 23 June, a decree on the definitive approval followed on 7 August without the full text, and the complete definitive consolidated text was published in the Boletín Oficial de la Ciudad de Melilla on 14 August 2020. The statutes define the company’s object as the public audiovisual communication service, comprising the production, editing and broadcasting of radio and television channels and online information services, together with content production and distribution and the management of exploitation rights.

The Consejo de Administración has a minimum of three and a maximum of 11 members. They are elected by the Junta General from candidates proposed by the political groups represented in the Assembly, for terms that may not exceed the Assembly’s mandate and in no case five years. The Plenary Assembly of Melilla assumes the functions and competences of the Junta General, meeting in ordinary session once a year. Under Article 14.IV.2.e the Board itself appoints and removes its President from among its own members, at its discretion, so the two appointments are separate steps.

The statutes permit the company to externalise production, the editing of content and the provision of material, technical and human resources, within the limits set by basic state legislation, but provide that the news services may in no case be externalised.

The presidency has changed three times in five years. Elena Fernández Treviño, a Socialist councillor, was designated in December 2021 by a board vote in which the Popular Party and Vox abstained, the Popular Party stating that its own candidate had been blocked. She was succeeded by Yeray Díaz, who left the post abruptly amid accusations of workplace harassment. The Junta General appointed a new Board in 2023, including Sebastián Alarcón on the proposal of the Popular Party. The Board then appointed Alarcón as President and Francisco José Díaz García as Vice-President. Alarcón presented the company’s budget as president in December 2024.

The 2023 Assembly election returned 14 Popular Party seats, five for Coalición por Melilla, three Socialist, two Vox and one for Somos Melilla, an absolute majority on the threshold of 13, and Juan José Imbroda of the Popular Party became Mayor-President. The Assembly’s own agreement of 21 July 2023 on the composition of its committees allotted the Popular Party seven of the 12 places on each, against two for Coalición por Melilla and one each for the Socialists, Vox and the mixed group. Because the Plenary Assembly is the Junta General and the Popular Party holds 14 of its 25 seats, the governing party commands an absolute majority of the shareholder body and can elect the board without the votes of any other group.

Reporting at the time of the 2023 appointments said that the company still required an administrative adaptation to bring all the groups represented in the Assembly onto its board, as had been done at the public company PROMESA, whose board was expanded from nine to twelve members. Mercantile records show nine directors appointed in September 2023 and two further directors registered in April 2024, while the company’s current public-facing board page lists eight members. The current composition, and how closely it corresponds to the Assembly’s representation, were therefore not fully clear from the published record at this update.

In October 2022 the Consejo de Transparencia y Buen Gobierno ruled against the company on a citizen’s request for the file on an audit contract covering the 2017 to 2019 accounts, all minor contracts signed since 2019 and all expenditure charged to its petty-cash fund since 2019. The Council held that all of it was public information and that the company had not justified applying any of the statutory limits, and gave it 20 working days to hand the documents over. The company had not responded to the Council’s own request for submissions.

Source of funding and budget

RTV Melilla is funded by the Ciudad Autónoma de Melilla, and the city’s 2026 budget documentation states that the company’s income comes entirely from the autonomous city. The president’s memorandum to that budget gives these figures for its own budget.

Editorial independence

The statutes set out the general objectives of the public service in Article 4.II, which include promoting civic coexistence and the plural and democratic development of society, and guaranteeing freedom of expression and the right of citizens to receive objective, truthful and impartial information. Article 14.III.1 requires members of the Consejo de Administración to act with full independence and neutrality and provides that they are not subject to any instruction or indication in the exercise of their functions. The statutes also prohibit the externalisation of the news services. They establish no news council, no advisory council and no editorial statute, however, and no such body or instrument was located for this update. The company publishes no separate editorial code or style manual.

The new Subdirector de Informativos post is classified as a senior-management position rather than an ordinary staff post, and it sits directly above a news service that the statutes prohibit the company from outsourcing.

No complaint alleging political interference in RTV Melilla’s news output during 2025 or 2026 was located for this update. The sources checked were the Boletín Oficial de la Ciudad de Melilla, the Assembly’s published budget material, the company’s own website and local reporting.

AI and digital policy

No RTV Melilla policy on the use of artificial intelligence in journalism, and no deployment of artificial-intelligence tools by the broadcaster, was located for this update.

Classification rationale

RTV Melilla remains classified Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM).

The city owns the whole of the company’s capital and funds it. Its board is elected by the Plenary Assembly sitting as the Junta General, from candidates proposed by the Assembly’s political groups.

The Popular Party holds 14 of the Assembly’s 25 seats, giving it an absolute majority in the Junta General and therefore sufficient votes to appoint directors without another group’s support. The President is subsequently chosen by the Board from among its members. The statutes set no reinforced majority and no fixed board size, only a range of three to eleven members.

No evidence of a sustained editorial line imposed or approved by state authorities was found for this update, and that remains the editorial criterion for State-Controlled status.

The statutory safeguards are limited. The statutes require objective, truthful and impartial information, require Board members to act independently and neutrally and free of instructions, and prohibit the outsourcing of the news services, but they establish no news council, advisory council or editorial statute. The board composition published by the company does not clearly correspond to the Assembly’s representation. The 2026 budget creates a Subdirector de Informativos post under a senior-management contract rather than as an ordinary staff position. And the company was the subject of a 2022 transparency ruling after failing to provide requested contracting and expenditure information.

September 2026